Non-Gebrokts- is the minhag or tradition that some people have not to combine wet substances with matzo for fear that it will become leavened.
You really don’t truly experience a non-gebrokts Pesach (Passover) until you stay somewhere that holds of Chassidic minhagim. Hotels feature masterful chefs which can manipulate those egg noodles and make it seem like real lasagna with real soggy matzo as the noodle layers. But regular Joes or shall I say Channies, do not have such abilities. In fact Pesach at a non-gebrokt household is probably the worst food experience one can have, combine it with a long seder that tends to be all in Yiddish or Hebrew- and stringencies on how big a kezayis is, you have one meal of suffering cut out for you.
In fact it is a statistical fact that sederim held at non-gebrokt households will last 1.5 times longer then regular matzo ball eating apikorsim households. The shortest sederim tend to be those held by singles, and people who use ancient 1950’s era Maxwell house hagadas.
Having to eat the bread of affliction is enough suffering for me, having to eat it over a plastic bag while the prying eyes of the woman of the house are making sure no crumbs of matzo are carried by stray winds into the drops of grape juice on your plate. Then if your at a really strict household, they put paper towels in their mouths before eating matzo so that all droplets of saliva are soaked up before the matzo even touches your tongue, I told them that they could smoke weed and they could do it without being over any melacho of squeezing, and not only would it give them cotton mouth- but they would be able to eat korech without having to gag on all the matzo and maror they had to choke down.
In fact non-gebrokts people are known to eat huge korech sandwiches that make me look like I have an eating disorder. I am one of those people that takes some Romaine Lettuce and loads on the charoset, kind of like I was eating nachos or something. I like thick choroset with walnuts in it, I always remember getting the free charoset from Telse Yeshiva, with the feather and the wooden spoon- which I have recently found out is just another tradition which no one really follows. In fact the only real necessity when searching for chometz is a candle. I always liked the whole wooden spoon and feather thing, made me feel like an Indian going into battle.
I was in a seforim store in Monsey yesterday and saw yet another funny Jewish invention to rip off the lazy. It was bag that said “Chometz” on it and featured ten pieces of bread in little dime bags for sale. It was $1.99, I joked about it with the owner, you know a loaf of bread costs that much. I bet you the guy is making loads off of it. I am not cleaning nothing, I am flying to Colorado, although I did eat most of my chometz, that always sucks when you come back from vacation and find an empty house devoid of food and lines at the pizza store like there was some food shortage or something.
Do people really crave bread products that much during pesach or is it just tradition to rush to the bagel store an hour after its over. Most kosher places do not open the night that Pesach ends, but on the upper west side we have an establishment known as H&H Bagels, and if you wanted to see the upper west side Jewish community en masse, just show up at the long snaking line of Pesach sufferers on 80th and Broadway an hour after Pesach. Battle stories of the suffering through Pesach without bread products are swapped as are peoples dreams of different foods as if they were dying of hunger after their plane crashed on a desert island. I think it was psychological, after all, I would always eat some ice cream and candy bars on the night after Pesach, and it felt so good to be able to be like normal people and just eat whatever I saw. I think Pesach makes us realize that we have it pretty good with all this kosher food and all.
First spent Pesach in Buffalo, then it got too much of a shlep, then we did Pesach in Monsey, and that became too frum, so we dicided to do the Pesach hotel thing. Here’s how it would work in my house, around December my father would say, where do you guys want to go this year? We always wanted to go to a cool place like Arizona or Italy, but of course he meant where is the cheapest that is not in Florida or the Tri-State area. My dad hated Florida with a passion- only due to the weather, my brother and I hated it because the highest point was 340 feet.
So the first year we stayed in a hotel as adults was when I was 18 and senior in high school. We went to West Virginia, it was my first time in a place where people had southern accents. Hotels were great for two reasons, the food rocked and there was always the chance that you would meet some girls and get to bring them back to your room. The latter never did happen, I met plenty of girls, just no one took me up on my offer to come back to my room. In fact if you expect to get some at a Pesach hotel, you have to go to Florida I hear.
The seders at hotels are the best. In fact they are one of the reasons so many people go to hotels. If your dad is single- he gets lumped into the family sederim, which is usally the token conservative people and all the old folks in white yarmulkes and doilies. The old folks are always interesting. The best is when you sit down at your table and there are 10 other people that you have to talk to and make nice with. My brother and I were always the only ones under 50, and way beyond the family tables there was always some cuttie that you had convinced yourself was looking your way during the seder. She probably wasn’t, but it was something to get you through the painful ordeal.
In general I do not like the seder. At hotels it’s a little better, because you don’t have to sit through 15 ma-nishtanas in Yiddish and Hungarian and you don’t have to wait for people to eat three boxes of matzo to fulfill their kezayis, you also usually have a choice between several different karpas selections- so if parsley doesn’t suit you, you can always get a potato.
Another thing that’s great about hotels, is that even the non-gebrokts ones don’t have a secret gebrokts police making sure you don’t crumble up the matzo and put it in your soup. In fact if you think geborkts is treife, I would advise you to stay at home, because lots of illegal gebrokts activities go on at supposedly non-gebrokts hotels. My old man was always using his piece of matzo that always looked like the State of Tennessee as I recall- as his knife. Even at non-gebrokts houses he was always finding ways to satisfy his semi leavened bread craving, whether it be dipping his matzo in the charoset or into the soup, or into his coffee- yuck. Yes there is a whole generation of people that dip matzo in coffee folks.
I always thought the people who held non-gebrokts were just insane. To think that matzo would rise if the seltzer bottler exploded on it, seemed to me just like the whole afikomen search- it was just another way to keep the kids entertained. Man, you should see whenever something spills at a non-gebrokts household, its like they switch to attack mode. Suddenly everyone is up from their pillow encased chairs and the roadies switch the table cloths and all contaminated areas are immediately thrown out. Its as if there was a nuclear leak or something, I can only imagine the women in safety suits removing the slowly rising matzo flakes with the spilled grape juice or seltzer so as not to let any leavened matzo touch anywhere. Craziness I tell you- but it keeps the kids awake and its gives them an extra question at the 4 questions. Why on this night do we assume that bread can rise from wet matzo, and if it can rise from wet matzo how on earth can we eat it? Will it not rise in our wet mouths?
When the heck did Romaine lettuce become maror, at least give me tomatoes if we are going the salad route. Horseradish is perfectly fine, but I think that in modern times people are so week that they need substitutes, or maybe it’s to keep the heimishe companies in business, you know they ones that sell big lamps, vegetable wash and bodek veggies. It’s always a conspiracy in my mind.
Until two weeks ago I had no idea what I was going to do for Pesach, I found out I would not be off until Friday so it nixed my plans to drive to Denver and then around Utah and New Mexico, that’s what I would have done if I was not working a real job. So instead I am flying to Denver tomorrow to spend it with on of my best buds, luckily I am the same shoe size, he’s got two bikes and skis for me, and I am pumped. Its also Hashgacha prutus that Pesach will give me three days to get acclimatized. I am bringing my computer- although I have no idea if I will blog or not.
Wishing you all a happy and healthy Pesach (Passover)
45 responses so far ↓
1 Anonymous // Apr 17, 2008 at 11:07 am
“… they put paper towels in their mouths before eating matzo so that all droplets of saliva are soaked up before the matzo even touches your tongue.”
Seriously?! People do this? This is new level of insanity.
2 heshman // Apr 17, 2008 at 11:09 am
I was joking, but you never really know what they will come up with next.
3 Anonymous // Apr 17, 2008 at 11:32 am
Whew. I am relieved you were kidding.
BTW - My son came home from Kindergarten with the wooden spoon and the feather. I’m having a hell of a time convincing him Moshe didn’t come down from Har Sinai with these chametz extracting implements.
4 heshman // Apr 17, 2008 at 11:36 am
Haha, thats hilarious. I felt like a kid who found out Santa Clause was fake when I was told you didn’t have to use the spoon and feather- I felt used.
5 outaline // Apr 17, 2008 at 11:39 am
We don’t eat gebrokts but we’ve never gone to such extremes. If the matzah happens to get wet we don’t eat it. I was always the kid who asked that question about it getting wet in your mouth so what does it matter, I never got an answer that made any sense (aren’t senseless minhagim wonderful?)
Even though we don’t have gebrokts we make some of the best Pesach cakes around. In fact we make them even after Pesach is over and many friends who do eat gebrokts have claimed it is way better than theirs.
Talking about extremes my father was telling us last year that he has a cousin who measures out exactly a kezais of matzah and doesn’t eat it any other time because it may become chometz in his mouth. I wonder what his family eats the rest of yom tov because you know that someone so extreme probably doesn’t eat anything on Pesach.
6 heshman // Apr 17, 2008 at 11:44 am
Well I was thinking an IV drip of matzo may work, but will get wet. Then I thought of the best idea yet- how about snorting matzo or maybe matzo sepositories for the very extreme.
7 s(b.) // Apr 17, 2008 at 12:41 pm
ew. I don’t know which idea is more charming. that’s funny, though. I say suppositories, minimize the time it’s in the body. No snorting. Nobody likes bloody matzah.
8 s(b.) // Apr 17, 2008 at 12:42 pm
and have an awesome pesach, man. sounds like a blast!
9 Looking for cake recipes // Apr 17, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Hi outaline,
Do you wanna post some of those awesome recipes? Or maybe email them to me directly? odyeshvu1@gmail.com
And if you know any good salad recipes, that would be cool, too.
Thanks and chag kasher!
10 Q // Apr 17, 2008 at 12:56 pm
My mother’s parents had an odd minhag: they wouldn’t eat gebrochts the first two days, but they’d eat gebrochts the rest of Pesach. Does anyone else do this?
My father’s family eats gebrochts, so I’ve always done so. I pity my sister who married a BT who of course doesn’t eat gebrochts (BT’s, not having a minhag to follow, adopt every possible chumra). Matzo brei and kneidlach make yom tov much more enjoyable.
11 heshman // Apr 17, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Mtazo brei rocks, I haven’t had it in a long time. So in answer to your question- I know that most people who keep non-gebrokts- will eat gebrokts on the last day- Its probably like this to get rid of all the matzo. But who cares because its bagels and bread that night anyway.
12 ugottabelieve // Apr 17, 2008 at 1:05 pm
not sure what it is about gebrokts thats drives seemingly normal people a little crazy but my father doesn’t mind if i don’t got to minyan or do much else but he’ll go nuts if a crumb falls out of my napkin
me and my siblings have plea bargained to allow us to spread butter on the matza but no jam chas v’sholom
what i never got was even if i do hold of gebrokts y cant i get my matza wet and then just eat it with in 18 minutes?
13 Q // Apr 17, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Then it was probably only on acharon shel pesach that my grandparents ate gebrochts. I’m not well-versed in chassidishe minhagim.
Speaking of bikes, a few years ago I did a 130-mile ride during chol hamoed pesach. Baked potatoes, dried fruit, bananas, honey, and some matzo with jam got me through it.
14 Left Brooklyn and never looked back // Apr 17, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Q, yes there are chassidim who “brocht” on achron shel pesach, probably because they are baking bagels in the Holyland.
Hesh, be daring and sneak some kitniyot.
Chag Kasher v’Samaeach to all (and safe travels).
15 heshman // Apr 17, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Don’t even get me started on Sephardim and ashkenazic minhagim.
I really don’t miss rice and all that over pesach. Although fruity pebels sound way better then fruity ohs.
16 Anonymous // Apr 17, 2008 at 1:36 pm
My kids are staring longingly at the fruity Crispie O’s and asking how much longer until I let them dig in.
17 Left Brooklyn and never looked back // Apr 17, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Hesh, you are on a roll, now that you have covered “gbrochts” go for the kill, kitniyot!!
18 Q // Apr 17, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Off-topic, but did anyone see yesterday’s NY Times article about Susie Fishbein, the Kosher By Design author? She sets her Seder table weeks in advance! I suppose she has two dining rooms (as well as two kitchens), one for all the year and one for Pesach. Here’s the paragraph:
———————————–
“I go shopping at Pottery Barn and Crate & Barrel right after Christmas, when everything goes on sale,” she said, looking with satisfaction at her silver-clad Passover table, set weeks ago for the first Seder. “Their holidays end after New Year’s Eve, but we have them all year round.”
19 heshman // Apr 17, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Well I don’t have much to say- I did write last year that thing about marijuana being kitnyot.
Kosher by design kicks butt, great pictures. They should make a culinary school. Rich people do tend to have great food.
20 Curious // Apr 17, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Wait, so is pot really kitnyot??
Cuz you know, 4:20 is on Pesach this year…
21 rachel // Apr 17, 2008 at 2:59 pm
here’s some more material for u…we don’t eat gebrokts but we also peel all the veggies, yup tomatoes and all..don’t eat garlic (in russia they used to put garlic in flour bags to keep the bugs away so it’s clearly chametz!!) and only shmura matza (in bags at the sedar…ur telling me they had ziploc on russia, ya um, ok. ). and we keep cholov yisrael so you can forget about any non spoiled dairy…and we’re not alone in these crazy concepts. I havent been in my parents house for more than the first days in years…it just doesn’t make sense.
22 heshman // Apr 17, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Well I should have mentioned that the two places I spent pesach last year did not eat any processed foods and made all their own stuff. Chassidim man- though the homemade mayonaise was cool.
23 K // Apr 17, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Anyone ever wonder if Hashem is laughing (or crying) at all this mishugas?
24 Frum Punk // Apr 17, 2008 at 3:48 pm
“BT’s, not having a minhag to follow, adopt every possible chumra”
Ha ha, not always. When my family became frum my parents took the most leniant of everything, so I have an odd mix of minhagim.
We wait 3 hours after meat, I have double daled on my tefillin. I think the rest is normal thought.
25 Peasach (non-gebrokts) recipes « outaline // Apr 17, 2008 at 4:51 pm
[...] (non-gebrokts) recipes This post is in response to the request I got for my comment on Frumsatire about good non-gebrokts cake [...]
26 suitepotato // Apr 17, 2008 at 6:55 pm
K, probably shaking His head and rolling His eyes.
I asked my mother-in-law regarding gebrokts and she didn’t quite recognize what I was talking about so I explained. She replied that it was just insane and her mother and father didn’t put the family through that.
My wife shrugged and said, “are you sure you don’t want to have a ham instead?” at which point my mother-in-law nearly choked on the involuntary laughter.
I’ll be lucky if my wife doesn’t follow through on her idea to make “something bitter” to be a handful of sour candy. I don’t know why she’s rebels against the slightest observance these days.
27 shmuel // Apr 17, 2008 at 7:33 pm
have a good pesach - nice post by the way.
I’m glad I don’t live in NY, at least not after Pesach that is. my school is sending a trip their next week, which should be interesting to hear all of their stories about it.
28 mikeinmidwood // Apr 17, 2008 at 8:31 pm
I have a friend who has to chuck it down his throat because he doesnt eat gebrokts
29 The Babysitter // Apr 17, 2008 at 9:55 pm
About the Matzah getting wet in your mouth anyways…its different there, its allowed once its in your mouth. Same with eating other foods, concerning Melachos on Shabbos. If its Derech Acheila your allowed to do it. Your allowed to eat food that has food coloring even though it will color your mouth, while you can’t color on Shabbos, because once the food is in your mouth and its the way of eating it then its permitted.
30 menashe // Apr 17, 2008 at 10:48 pm
the Arizal says that if you are careful with chometz on pesach you will merit not to commit any aveiros that year [bshogeg]
the Alter Rebbe [Shulchan Aruch HaRav for the snags out there] says IIRC that its not only good but in fact proper (i think that means not really a chumra) to be careful with gebrokts. of course he brings several reasons from halacha that I don’t remember.
not to say that eating gebrokts is treif, but davka not eating is hardly the crazy thing i think you pretty humorously make it seem.
Every year I look forward to my Pesach diet. no processed food - forget gebrokts.
a friend of mine tells me his father actually shechts his own meat for pesach. the only processed anything he has is the arba cosos. I guess relative to him I am meikel and will buy kosher lpesach deli meats.
31 menashe // Apr 17, 2008 at 10:53 pm
oh i forgot one more thing: we eat gebrokts the last day lshaim achdus with our fellow litvaks and MO Jews.
(Just kidding there’s a better reason)
32 Chris_B // Apr 18, 2008 at 12:02 am
about the weed thing, is the ban on eating or smoking it? if smoking is no good, what do tobacco smokers do?
33 s(b.) // Apr 18, 2008 at 12:04 am
that’s funny, menashe.
34 Mindy // Apr 18, 2008 at 12:30 am
I feel bad for how you feel about the Sedarim- Pesach is amazing! But I suppose that’s not the only thing you missed out on..
Suite potato about God in Heaven- I dunno. I’d rather be dun people l’kaf zchus- let this be another saneger for klal Yisrael. Who else would drive themselves as crazy?
And my family- we’re Chassidish- does some of the stuff Rachel described- peel everything, no gebrochts- my aunt stays away from proccessed things- although to tell you the truth, I don’t remember that happening till later in our Peach lives…
And our family has an interesting minhag- besides for yes, eating gebrochts the last day of Pesach, the men only eat matza on the Seder night (s?- not sure). Interesting, no? It always feel like a feminist Revisionsist/Reform meal when the women bentch on the matzah.
Enjoy your Pesach, too, everyone! May it be meaningful and comfortable and make you feel warm and fuzzy inside! lol
35 Me // Apr 18, 2008 at 1:46 am
All this Pesach craziness strengthens my believe that G-d wrote the Torah. It would be a greater miracle if man could convince us to follow all the laws of Pesach.
36 ConservativeSci Fi // Apr 18, 2008 at 9:48 am
Hesh,
I was reading about the maror and apparently, according to the mishna, only five species are permitted and there are some opinions that horseradish is not one of them. Many opinions seem to make romaine lettuce the preferred maror.
At my father in law’s seder, we will no doubt have to wait while my brother in law makes “fresh” horseradish. Cause it isn’t hot enough if you make it on Thursday or Friday before shabbat?! Oh well, we only have to repeat everything three times there.
37 Hesh // Apr 18, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Maybe this year will be different Mindy.
Menashe if you wanted to tell snags who the Alter Rebbe was- the last thing I would say is the Shulchan Aruch Harav- its so obscure.
I would say the author of the Tanya.
38 Ben-Yehudah // Apr 21, 2008 at 5:59 pm
B”H
Dare I?
http://esseragaroth.blogspot.com/2008/04/important-pesah-public-notice.html
39 Anon // Apr 21, 2008 at 11:09 pm
Re horseradish vs. romaine lettuce - romaine lettuce is preferable. It’s one of the minim listed and it fits the requirements - it’s a vegetable (as opposed to horseradish, which is a root), and it’s got a bitter taste (as opposed to horseradish, which is sharp). Apparently, lettuce in Europe was bug-infested, and they had no options, and that’s when horseradish came into play…
40 Hesh // Apr 22, 2008 at 12:04 am
Lettuce is bug infested in American as well. In fact there is a economy supporting charedim that is built around this fact.
Big wash, big lights, special lettuce…
41 psacman // Apr 22, 2008 at 2:26 am
Well, we just finished our first sedarim at home ever. All I have to say is, you better eat your words about home-cooked non-gebrokts. My wife’s cooking rocks, with or without the matzo meal. (Of course, my wife is also a professional chef, so it’s not exactly your typical home-cooked stuff anyway. But still.)
Anyway, we have one of the weirder minhagim around. Non-gebrokts the first two days, then gebrokts for the rest of Pesach. No idea why, but my mom and dad BOTH had that minhag in their families, so it’s obviously out there.
BTW, we did the bit with the costumes and the animal noises and the kids throwing plagues at Abba (that would be me). My wife even bought me a black-and-gold-striped Pharaoh torc (I think that’s what the weird-looking head-thing is called), and a good time was had by all.
42 GailMail // Apr 23, 2008 at 8:31 pm
About the weed/kitniyot thing- From what I understand you are allowed to own kitniyot on Pesach, you just can’t eat it. Therefore- joints OK, pot brownies (gebrokts or non)- not ok.
A question I’d always wondered about for those who peel all their veggies- how do you use romaine lettuce for Maror?
43 Hesh // Apr 23, 2008 at 10:32 pm
Good question, maybe they use some heter for that one.
44 israluv // Apr 28, 2008 at 9:02 pm
how i WISH for the day that i no longer have to hold this minhag of not eating g’bruchts. i am going to try to matir neder this year = but there is no escaping the huge monstrous maror and korech sandwiches load w/ ground horseradish. gotta love the chasidish minhagim for this very modern ortho gal… gag.
45 Hesh // Apr 28, 2008 at 9:17 pm
Do you peel all of your veggies as well.
Life without matzo balls, matzo brie and matzo pizza is like life without Ben and Jerrys- oh wiat you probably keep cholov yisroel as well.
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